The present invention generally relates to magnetic recording and reproducing, and more particularly, to a magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus loading with two sets of mechanisms such as a compact cassette tape recorder, a digital audio cassette tape recorder, and the like.
Recently, in sites for recording and reproducing music and the like, there have been widely adopted recording and reproducing control systems which employ two sets of mechanisms, as shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of electric circuit showing a conventional magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus which comprises a first mechanism 1, a second mechanism 2, a control circuit 3 including a micro-computer, a gate circuit and other elements for controlling the operation of the mechanisms 1 and 2, a pair of selection switches 4 and 5 for operating either one of the mechanisms, respectively, a first display means 6 including a light emitting diode and the like for indicating the selection of operation of the first mechanism by means of the selection switch 4, a second display means 7 for indicating the selection of operation of the second mechanism by means of the selection switch 5, and a set of operation switches 8 to 12 for the mechanisms to provide the operations of recording, fast forwarding, rewinding, reproducing, stopping, etc. For the systems as referred to above, in the case of mounting a tape cassette on only the first mechanism 1, the first mechanism 1 can be operated by the operations of operation switches 8 to 12 upon turning on the first display means 6, and it is necessary to operate the selection switch 5 in advance for mounting a tape cassette onto the second mechanism 2. Accordingly, with the conventional systems it needs a troublesome operation for changing from one mechanism to the other mechanism in such a manner that, in order to mount and operate immediately a tape cassette onto the other of the two mechanisms after making the selection of the one of mechanisms, the selection switch must first be operated to change from the one mechanism to the other mechanism, and then the operation switches must be operated to operate the other mechanism
Also, as another example of conventional systems as referred to above, there has been proposed an apparatus subjected to the operation of what is called timer starting, wherein the first mechanism is provided only with a reproducing function, while the second mechanism is provided with the two functions of recording and reproducing, and the second mechanism is automatically operated to record or reproduce when electrical power is provided to the second mechanism. With this system, it is not enough for the systems including a set of mechanisms to operate effectively with respect to the operation of timer starting, for instance, in the case of employing the system for reproducing of tape in place of an alarm clock every morning it often occurs if a tape cassette is not mounted on the second mechanism by any means.